I am my own friend and my own enemy.  I answer to "mom, love, baby, the wife, girl, friend and a few others names as well.  I really believe in the saying that goes something like this: "In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me". Everything that comes out of me is mine, because I alone chose it, I alone decide within my heart and mind -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, but I do share them. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears, but I do voice them.  I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes, but I do ask for advice. There are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am firm and at the same time loving to myself, I can look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me, about who I really am. Not who I should be, but who I really am and of course, however I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time can make my life a living hell, but I carry an extinguisher with me everywhere I go. Often times I make a fool out of myself and I love it, it is good learning.  I am far from perfect, I own many flaws and sometimes how I look, sound, think, and feel turn out to be so unfitting that even the image on the mirror that wakes early in the morning, stares back and whispers...."Whoa, you really messed up this time"!  I love life even when it pretends not to love me back.

Erika Brown